An expression in French, the most romantic of romance languages, comes to mind when I search for the words to describe my relationship with my new Ouidad Double Detangler Comb: COUP DE FOUDRE. Translation: love at first sight. After pulling the hulking behemoth of a comb out of its box and feeling its impressive weight in my palm, I knew that I had found a workhorse worthy of taking on my dense thicket of coils. It had the strength all right, but would it perform?

It was 3:00pm in early August in Atlanta and I was hot, parched, and waiting for a bus. After a sticky hour of commuting through humidity, I was delighted to find myself in the elegantly tranquil, not to mention air conditioned, interior of Urbanbella Salon, Atlanta’s ‘curly, kinky, wavy hair apothecary’ to meet with owner and fellow naturalista, Keneesha Hudson.

Urbanbella Owner + Founder, Keneesha Hudson

I had heard stellar reviews of Urbanbella on forums and from other bloggers; I thought that my weekend in the A for the Bronner Brothers show would be the ideal time to visit the salon-shop. Freshly arrived and glowing from a relaxing and adventurous weekend of white water rafting, Keneesha welcomed me into Urbanbella’s plush seating area where we spent the next couple hours doing one of my favorite things in the world: geeking out about natural hair.

The first thing is open to ALL readers and that is a G.i.V.e.A.w.A.y.! It is for a pair of crochet earrings by Fatemeh’s Jewelry and Accessories. All you have to do is send an email to naturalselectionblog@gmail.com telling me what hairstyle you would wear to rock these earrings. Thanks to all of you who have already entered! I’ll be picking a winner THIS FRIDAY so be sure to get your entry in! Oh and Fatemeh also makes really cute hair candy so be sure to check out the Etsy store!

This week is Independent Artist’s Week in San Francisco with a lot of fun activities and events going on. I attended a live art celebration in the Fillmore this past Monday and had a phenomenal time checking out the performers and mingling with other Bay Area Naturals such as photographer Sasha Kelley! Concerts, networking events, parties and an art walk are all part of IAW. Check out the full scoop here!

I am on the Board of Directors of an amazing non-profit arts organization called Precita Eyes Mural Arts Association. On Saturday September 25th we will be hosting our Annual Gala at the SOMArts Gallery in San Francisco. This years theme is ¡VIVA MURALISMO! and there will be music by the Gaucho Gypsy Jazz Sextet, participatory live mural painting, and auctions for pieces of authentic mural details. It’s a really fun party for a really great cause: keeping the mural arts alive. Visit Precita Eyes’ website for more details on tickets and to learn about the organization!

For those ladies in Chicago, BGLH will be hosting its next natural hair meet up on October 9th so mark those calendars! Natural Selection’s next Bay Area meet up is coming next month as well. Details to come soon!

This is a picture of my bed. Remember it as it is a critical part of this post.

Last Friday evening I found myself inspired to blow dry my hair into a massive fro. After acquiring blow dryer comb attachment I set out to purchase heat protectant, an essential part of any sort of heat-related regimen. Heat protectant products usually use silicones that bond to the hair strand to protect their fragile make up from any potential damage as well as provide a lot of slip as you comb through the hair. I was so nervous about hurting my little Lola that I invested in not one but two types of heat protectants: a spray and a serum.

After washing my hair with Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle Conditioner and applying some of my Bee Mine Hair Milk as a leave in, I thoroughly detangled with my *new* Ouidad Double Detangler Comb (full review to come soon) and let my hair dry part of the way. The wetter your hair is, the more heat necessary to dry and blow out, and the greater risk of potential damage. The results: a huge, lush, soft fro. Who knew that the kind of fro I have always wanted was just 45 minutes of blow drying away!?

Armed with my fierce hair, I set out on bike to meet my friends for the evening. Now, I love my dear city of San Francisco, but our weather could not be more bizarre. As soon as I began to pedal to the bar, the fog began to emit mist and small droplets of rain. Within 45 minutes, my glorious fro had gotten wet enough to revert back to its normal shrunken state.

Yet another example, ladies and gents, of how if you ask, you shall receive. Yesterday, I put together my natural hair wish list in celebration of the upcoming Labor Day. And before I put my little Lola on her satin-covered pillow to rest last evening, the spirit of Santa Labor Claus helped me acquire not just ONE but TWO of the goodies from my wish list!

The first was left at my bedroom door, a little surprise from my roommate Ben who as a consultant spends more time in hotels than at our home. Awesome, Ben. Thank you for getting in the Spirit of St. Labor Day!!!

And the second, well, I’ve been blogging about this one too often to not purchase. So on the way home, I decided to swing through Sephora buy myself a little stocking stuffer:

I am particularly excited to try this one because I have heard RAVE reviews. I’ll be giving it a whirl on myself this weekend and next week I will be trying it on MY 7-YEAR OLD SISTER SKYA. Remember last year when Skya was interviewed for Natural Selection? Well this year, we’re going to be spending some more hair-focused QT as I will be traveling back home to Minnesota for a few days and am going to take our her braids, detangle, and style her natural hair for the new school year (and before a texturizer gets to her first!) More on the game plan for this later.

Since Christmas is still 4 months away and I already have my two front teeth, I thought that maybe I should celebrate Labor Day with my natural hair wish list! I know I have a ton of products and toys, but there are still so many more that I would love to get my paws on and onto Lola! This is what I would love to see next Monday morning beneath my Labor Day Tree freshly delivered from Labor Claus (not in any order of preference):

Heat + Deep Conditioning Accessories

Bonnet Dryer – for deep conditioning and setting styles in less than 24 hours

A new shower cap — Mine has loose elastic on the bottom. This is easily re-acquired, but I generally forget to buy one until I’m 3 minutes into deep conditioning and have a river of conditioner rolling down my shoulders.

Detangling Utensils

Seamless Mason Pearson Comb – most combs are made out of a 2-sided mold. The places where these molds fit together have these little ridges, or seams, that can pull hair out when combing. A seamless comb does away with these snag-hazards.

Ouidad Double Detangler Comb – I’ve been hearing so much about this thing! This comb has two rows of teeth and so for a gal that does two rounds of detangling this could cut my time in half by getting twice the amount of work done with one comb stroke.

Styling Toys + Hair Candy

Flexi-rodsfor spiral setting — I like the rolling the ends of my twists to give them a more bouncy feel and I’ve always wanted to do the same with my un-twisted wet strands. Would probably need the bonnet dryer to make this happen though.

While the end results of doing your hair may wind up looking pretty darn cute, there are definitely parts of the styling process in which you can make yourself look questionable to say the least and totally absurd to say the most. Remember the Coolio/Bumble Ball stretching situation? Well yesterday when I put my hair in large, chunky twists to try to refresh my twist out, I looked in the mirror and two images came to mind:

That’s right. Those terrifying-and-impressive-at-the-time-but-now-look-as-real-as-gumby-compared-to-what-james-cameron-is-pulling-off-these-days dogs from Ghostbusters and the androgynous, flat-topped Gozer. Check it out:

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